Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Talbuc's Take - Week 4

AFC

The Texans are the real deal. They run the football whenever they want and
have several standouts on a defense led by one of the better defensive minds in
the game in Wade Phillips. The Jets
shouldn’t put up much of a challenge this week, as most of the focus in this
one will undoubtedly be on how awful Mark Sanchez looks against the Texans
defense. Houston’s best tests come in weeks six and
seven when they host the Packers and Ravens.
Those should be great games.

I think Baltimore
is the second best team in the conference.
They just went through a brutal four games in eighteen days stretch and
went 3-1. They’ll go to KC this week and
host the Cowboys next week before traveling to Houston for that huge week seven
matchup. That one could go a long way in
determining playoff seeding for the conference.
You’ve got to be happy for Torrey Smith.
He followed up his emotional 127 yard and 2 score MNF game against the
Patriots with another TD and nearly 100 yards against the Browns. Joe Flacco really trusts him.

Don’t piss off Tom Brady.
After getting behind 21-7 to the Bills early in the third quarter, it
looked like the Patriots were going to drop to an unspeakable 1-3. Mr. Brady wasn’t having any of that. He led the Patriots on six straight TD drives,
including an amazing 35-0 run. I don’t
think this team is perfect (especially without Hernandez), but they got too
much heat for being 1-2 (prior to blowing out Buffalo).
They lost by two to the undefeated Cardinals in a game that doesn’t look
nearly as bad now, and they lost on to Baltimore by one point on that
questionable game ending FG. They host
the Broncos this week, and I think this one might end up a one sided affair for
the home team.

I think the Steelers come out and have something for the
Eagles this Sunday. Pittsburgh had the early bye, but it worked
out a bit in their favor with them getting back both James Harrison and Troy
Polamalu for this one. I like Pittsburgh to roll Philly
this week.

Kansas City
is probably the team that has disappointed me most so far. Yes, Matt Cassel sucks, but we can’t change
that. It’s the defense that’s been the
bigger disappointment. Far be it for me
to defend Cassel, but in the Chiefs three
losses, they have scored 24, 17, and 20 points.
You should win two maybe all three of those games if you give your
defense that many points. They conceded
40, 35, and 37 in those losses. Yes, Cassel turns it over like it’s his job (7 INTs, 4 fumbles),
but a good defense has to pick up a bad offense.

Back to the Jets for a moment. They’re awful, and they haven’t reached rock
bottom yet. I see things getting a lot
worse, regardless of who’s under center the rest of the way. The Tebow trickeration isn’t going to work on
this team. They have absolutely nothing
besides a raw rookie Stephen Hill at receiver now with Santonio Holmes out, and
their running backs are minor league caliber.
The defense was declining and has to play the rest of the year without
Darrelle Revis. They’re 2-2 and barely
beat Miami in
OT. After they lose to Houston
this week they still have to play at New England, Seattle,
and St. Louis and host New
England, Arizona, and San Diego. Maybe they get lucky, but that’s another six
losses which has them looking at 8-8 at best this year. They’ll probably lose half of those remaining
games which would have them at 5-11, which I think is a pretty accurate projection
at this point. I’ll watch it play out
with a smile.

NFC

I really like what’s going on in the NFC. It’s still early, but this has the looks of a
great playoff race.

Teams that have special seasons have several special moments
along the way. Atlanta may have had their first this past
Sunday in that dramatic comeback win against the rival Panthers. Carolina
brought everything they had for the Falcons, and Atlanta took it on the chin, fought back
repeatedly, and emerged with a memorable win.
Can they keep it up? The thing I
find really odd is their schedule. They
alternate home and away games from the first week of the season through the
seventeenth. I can’t say I’ve ever seen
another team’s schedule play out like that.
Will not getting comfortable at home be a good thing or a bad thing for
this team? They’re playing at a high
level and still have an incomplete defense.
There’s room for this team to get even better.

Anyone think San Fran is going soft? Jets fans?
Yeah didn’t think so. The Niners
responded to the week three upset at Minnesota
with a 34-0 whooping of the Jets. They
ran the ball (245 yards) and prevented the Jets from doing so (45 yards). They should beat Buffalo this week in a game that I see
resembling the 27-19 week two game against the Lions that wasn’t really as
close as the score suggests. I’m already
looking forward to next week’s conference championship rematch against the
Giants.

Ok, the Packers won, but should we feel any better about
them now? They’re in a similar boat as
the Patriots in my opinion. The
panicking is for naught, because, where are they really trying to come back
from? They lost by eight to what might
be the best team in football and were victims of the Seattle screwjob. Still, they didn’t look great against the Saints;
couldn’t close the game out and needed a penalty and missed FG to escape with a
win. Their offense is out of rhythm, and
they’re allowing large chunks of yardage on the ground. I just said I’m not worried about them, but I
am concerned about this week in particular at Indy. This will be the first of a three game road
stretch; a game that precedes a marquee matchup with the Texans.

Arizona
is the feel good team so far. No one,
including Ken Whisenhunt, thought this team would be undefeated after four
weeks. They’ve beaten three quality
teams and had a nice come from behind win last week against the Dolphins. How much longer can they run this thing
out? Their next three games aren’t the
toughest on their schedule. They go to
the Rams, host Buffalo, and head to Minnesota. Now I’ll be surprised if they emerge from
that stretch unscathed, but if they do, they’ll be 7-0 when they host the
Niners in what would be the franchise’s biggest game since Super Bowl XLIII.

I think the Eagles are a bit of a fraud. If Ramses Barden doesn’t mug Nnamdi and Tom
Coughlin and Kevin Gilbride scrap that crap last drive play calling the Eagles are
2-2 and four points from being 0-4. As I
mentioned previously, I think they lose convincingly this week at Pittsburgh and return
home for a key game against a beatable Lions team. If Philly loses this week and then slips up
at home against Detroit, they’ll be 3-3 heading
into matchups with Atlanta
a nothing-to-lose Saints team, and division matchups with Dallas and
Washington. I’m more concerned about how
they perform in that Detroit game than this one
at Pittsburgh. Like Baltimore,
this team is at its best when it’s featuring their feature back. LeSean McCoy is the glue of this offense, and
I think they’re most dangerous when they consistently run the read option with
him and Vick. In my opinion, making that
the staple of their offense would be the best thing they could do to establish
consistency on this side of the ball.

I like what Minnesota
is doing. Christian Ponder isn’t making
mistakes with the football, Percy Harvin continues to show why he’s one of the
most dangerous offensive talents in the game, Adrian Peterson continues to
prove he’s superhuman, and the defense has been solid. I’m especially impressed that they got up for
a game at Detroit
a week after knocking off the Niners. I’m
still not sure they’re any better than the third best team in the division, but
they’ve already matched last year’s three game win total. Watch out for these guys. They start a very winnable stretch of games
here against the Titans, Redskins, Cardinals, Bucs, Seahawks, and Lions. If we’re still talking about them at that
point, they’ll be enjoying a much needed by week before taking on the Bears,
Packers, and Texans in four of their last five games of the season.

New Orleans
will win this week. They showed a lot of
guts last week in the loss at Green
Bay, and I don’t think they roll over after the way
that one ended. Drew Brees put the team
on his back and racks up some numbers against the Chargers on SNF. The Saints obviously aren’t going to be one
of football’s elite teams this year, but their four losses are by a combined 20
points. They could have legitimately won
the first two games against Washington and Carolina if a couple (and
I mean a couple) of calls go their way.
They blew the huge lead against the Chiefs and lost by one on a last
second missed FG. I’m not saying they go
on a run here because they have one seriously brutal schedule, but these guys
aren’t quitting.